The Urban Progression

In 1800 only 3% of people lived in a city of 1 million or more; by the year 2000, it was 47%. In 1950 there were only 83 cities worldwide with populations over 1 million; by 2007 there were 468. In April 2008, the world passed the 50% urbanization mark. Cities have evolved into a more complex space inter-linked by a number of systems and planners generally have failed to read the ‘Urban Progression’ and thus cities have failed significantly in terms of the ‘Quality of Life’ of the urbanites.

Virtual Sharing

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

There’s
always a difference between a dream and a vision. A dream may be a happening of
sub-conscious mind while a vision is based on one’s wisdom in his conscious
existence. A dream is based on an individual’s thought process while the vision
is based on our collective thought processes put together. To dream of building
SmartCities was undoubtedly good but urbanization is one of the toughest thing in this
world to be dealt in such easily and that too in this fast paced mode of developments
and advancements being experienced by our ongoing civilization. For
a smart mode of development, indigenous planning is the first requisite. Cities
are being treated more as a market commodity nowadays like ‘We provide the best
service and product' with assurances and terms & conditions tag in the small
right hand corner generally in small fonts so as to give it the least
attention. The government should make consultations but it should also remember
that there can’t be any prototype designs for building a real smart city.

The second thing is the smart utilization of the natural system. There are doubts when environmental planning is done separately ignoring
the fact that the natural system is itself the smartest thing in this universe
and its utilization in an integrated manner would have been given a higher
priority in the planning process if aspirations are for building real smart and sustainable cities. The government has called
for a competition and it is quite possible for it to come up with yet another
policy and test based on quantitative indexing. Smart cities literally means
smart in every sense and not just IT-enabling of a city to make it more
interactive. If the government is eying at it, then the term DigitalCities
would have been more apt and less confusing for the concerned fraternity.

The
third is the human society itself.The real utilization of the smart technology in places where it will
be placed in.Indian cities is another thing that creates doubt about the success of the smartcities in such a nation where a major share of its population can be normally seen living in the slums and degraded urban parts
generally out of lack of awareness and education. The usage of the entire technology
base which is being conceptualized to be incorporated into the urban system of the so-called
SmartCities is itself quite doubtful with a population still trying to come up
in its education sector. If the government really have aspirations for planning and building Smartfuture for the nation,
it should first look into things likeraising its percentage share of GDP used for education and
learning and then come up with its indigenous planning approach and then the utilization
of smart technology would have been more appropriate and suitable. But the
government has its vision and what all its inhabitants can do is increase
their participation in the whole planning process.

The
government is often seen pressing the advantage that the country has for having
the world’s largest demographic dividend, but its proper utilization as per
their capabilities and potential isn’t being looked into through wider
perspective and the exercise has looks more concentrated to provide them employment in
order to boost the economic development. Government has to understand that
economic development is only a means to an end & over-emphasizing it has
produced some non-adaptable or failed examples across the World. Smartcities (as per the contemporary approaches generally found being followed)
may come up with some sectoral successes but in an inter-dependent system of
human settlement, following sectoral approaches can never create balanced, smart & sustainable
future and the concerned fraternity should realize the phenomenon of the domino
effect which is one of thebest way of understanding the complexity while planning up for
the smartcities. India has a golden
chance to write its urban history better than many other nations of the world
but the key is to not repeat the mistakes which are already committed by our fellow human societies and are found
inappropriate/unsuitable/unworthy for the efficient functioning of an urban system.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

What
has been referred to as a shameful act by the Indian Media in Nepal has
originally revealed the face of the humanity which is advancing towards
becoming more individualistic over the coming decades as the process of
urbanization is intensifying with every passing moment and there are no clues
yet to plan those social & natural aspects while formulating urban policies
and programs by the government and the persons involved. The pet &
over-hyped project as they call it of Mr. Modi, India’s honourable Prime
Minister - smart cities can be looked as his yet another way of attracting the
masses which just seems more inspired from the likes of ‘SmartPhones’ and
‘SmartTV’ but the latter are just human creations out of his artistic mind and
the same principles of digitizing can’t be applied to the human settlements as
we aren’t the only thing this world is meant for and cities aren’t just
assembling of good quality infrastructure to provide employment and trade
facility. Focusing on economic development is good but thinking it as the end
product of human development is one of the biggest mistakes which the whole
humanity has been doing now especially after ‘The Great Depression’ of 1920’s
and 30’s as it is commonly known as.
When everything becomes economically active over the brains of human
beings, his basic empathetic characteristics are over-ridden by his individual
needs & desires and he tends to make such mistakes as made by the
media-persons in Nepal.

It’s
not the mistake of a single profession or a single person rather it’s the
outcome of the accelerated rate of advancements and developments that the
present generations of the ongoing human civilization are experiencing and they
are left in a state of confusion and ambiguity leaving them to get easily
inspired by the availability of excess of information over the web world which
they usually grasp without practically applying their brain and experiences
over it. Moreover, with the structure of
the society changing to more conserving one the situation can be seen to get
worsen over the coming decades if proper social and natural planning isn’t
carried out by India. Governments are formed to look after the system of human
settlements with a vision and not just to beautify them without the understanding
of its inter-dependent nature.

India
is at crucial junction of writing its urban history with a major portion yet to
plan over the coming years. What our future generations will read and think
about us will be defined in these coming years. Therefore rather than playing
with them for any type of individual or group gains, the government should
focus on increasing the capabilities of its population not just in terms of
money and finances - there are other significant aspects as well like social
security, relaxing with nature and the end product which the government should focus
should be to provide its citizens a happy, healthy and prosperous environment.
It can’t be done by virtue of isolation planning approach which is generally
seen by Indian mode of development. The planning would have to be carried out
considering the entire system as one single thing which looks quite complex to
understand and plan for, but it’s not a thing which can’t be worked out for
formulating rejuvenated indigenous approach for planning balanced and efficient
human settlements if the concerned nationals are really concerned about
building a better future for the country. The planning has to be made far more
visionary if India has to build its sustainable and smart human settlements of
the future.

Events
like that in Nepal should be seen as an eye opener and nature’s signal rather
than concentrating on blaming a section or group of people. Like in this case,
the media persons involved aren’t aliens or from any other planet – their
mindset is the reflection of the society as a whole in general and people
should understand before making comments over such things that they are also
part of it and they can only bring in the change in their society by
participating in constructive things. Our collective attitude should be
positive and achieving progress and development will be a lot easier than. And
media being a group of people which are considered to be human beings with more
wisdom and humanity than ‘aam aadmi’ (as its trending for some years now),
should better learn the subjects of humanity and ethics before even thinking of
becoming a journalist or any media person. We all should remember it at least
one time a day that we are human beings first than being anything else in this
world and shall act accordingly. Being hopeful for some more positive changes
as some are already under process.

Note - This article was written after trending topics like #GoBackIndiaMedia and others which created a lot of buzz around the Globe.

Author

I'm a keen observer of natural processes and man-made systems with good grasping ability and analyzing strength . I love reading and learning about different disciplines and that has made me the one with multi-disciplinary vision. I'm an Architect and an Ekistics Planner professionally. One thought poster of my room says - 'Explore your ideas and be Creative, Little things make the real Change'.